


Blood and Water (The Next Generation Remix)

by AstroGirl



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-05
Updated: 2009-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Children don't always turn out as we expect. A remix of Alara J Rogers' <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/19417">"Redeem the Blood"</a>. (Although technically, I suppose it's as much of a sequel as a remix.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Water (The Next Generation Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Redeem the Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417) by [Alara J Rogers (AlaraJRogers)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaraJRogers/pseuds/Alara%20J%20Rogers). 



> Many thanks to vilakins for the beta and to kerravonsen for running the Gen Remix Ficathon for which this was written.

My earliest memory is of floating, surrounded by cool and pleasant water. I must have been an infant, barely more than a newborn, as I'm told it was only a few monens after my birth that I was fitted with my first mobile environmental system and allowed out of my incubation tank, into the world. Those to whom I've mentioned this have been surprised; Sebaceans don't form long-term memories that young, and it's believed to be rare even in Scarrans. But I've always had a good memory. I believe I even remember my father's voice speaking calmly and soothingly to me as I floated in my post-natal bath. That's worth remembering: that, whatever our differences, he has always been kind to me in his own way, from the beginning.

My father. Yes, I do think of him that way, in the privacy of my mind, despite his attempts to raise me as a Peacekeeper. I never have entirely understood why the word should sound like such an obscenity when spoken by Peacekeeper lips. I don't call him by it in public, of course, but sometimes when we are alone I use it and he neglects to correct me. I don't believe it's reading too much into things to regard that as significant. He is not a man who ever commits an accidental omission.

Of course, he has also never missed an opportunity to remind me that my genetic father was some anonymous Scarran rapist, my mother a soldier who died in battle when I was young. "She took her shame," he says, words so familiar I could repeat them in my sleep, "and her anger, and instead of letting them destroy her, she forged them into a weapon." Whether that's true or not, I don't know; I never met the woman, was never even told her name. But I think my father believes it, and I'm quite sure he wants me to believe it.

But then, my father wants a great many things from me, some of them more reasonable than others, some of them mutually contradictory. He wants me to share his goals, his feelings, his opinions on every subject of importance, and yet -- so he says -- he wishes me to be strong-minded, independent, to become my own man. He wanted to raise me with more kindness and a greater sense of self-worth then he ever had as a child himself (and, despite any opinions I might have on his methods or his degree of success, I _do_ appreciate it). But he expects the result to be a copy of him: unpleasant, obsessive, ruthless even by the Peacekeepers' standards. Twice I've pointed out the logical inconsistency to him, an oddly simple mistake for a man who claims to value clear thinking and rationality. Different causes should be expected to produce differing effects, especially in a system as complex and sensitive as a sentient being.

The first time I said that to him, I received only the usual snarled reply about the Scarran menace and the need for unfailing strength. The second time, much more distressingly, he told me that he believed he'd been too soft on me as a boy, that he'd thought, mistakenly, that the world itself would be harsh enough to me to toughen me. I didn't tell him that it was only life with the Peacekeepers that I found harsh, that other species seemed willing enough to accept me, as long as he wasn't around. Or at least they did once I managed to overcome the belief he'd instilled in me that no one save him would ever find me acceptable and that it was pointless to try. The Peacekeepers, however, with their bigotry, their arrogance, their love of violence as the first, last, and only solution have always seemed to me very little better than what he's shown me of the Scarrans.

I don't know whether I failed to tell him that because I was afraid that he would, finally, lose control of himself and hurt me, or because I knew that the words would hurt _him_. What I do know is that I can't be what he wants me to be, what he attempted to raise me to be. Kessh'tar he named me, the day I was born, the day he "adopted" me. It's a Scarran word; I suppose that appealed to his sense of irony. Something about redeeming the sins of one's relatives by the shedding of blood. I've never quite understood the concept, not in my gut, no matter how many times he's explained it to me. He's much more Scarran than I am, for all that he hates them more. And every time he says my name, I can't help but hear all his expectations, all our disagreements. I've reached the point where I can no longer bear to answer to it.

My father had no name in his childhood, only taking one for himself when he broke away from that past to make his own way in the world. Me, I think I'll give up my childhood name and go nameless until I find one that suits me. One that has nothing to do with blood, or vengeance, or armored creatures that sting. I'll go out into the world on my own to learn all the things I missed living here with him, studying weapons and tactics and how to think of people as pieces on a game board. I'll have art and poetry in my life, friendship and love. Peace. Perhaps some day I'll adopt a child of my own, if I can't have one naturally, and I'll raise it to be nothing but itself. I think I might like that.

The truth is, my father did succeed in passing one thing on to me very well: when I've genuinely set my mind on a goal, I don't give up. And I _will_ have my own life. He'll have to kill me to stop me. Which, I suppose, he might. But when I remember that soothing voice speaking to me as I floated in my watery crib, when I remember the man who held me and cared for me as a child, I can't quite believe that he will. I think, perhaps, I can even make him understand:

I am not his weapon. I'm his son.


End file.
